The Station fire has shown the importance of being prepared for an emergency.

01:00 AM EST on Tuesday, December 20, 2005

BY AMANDA MILKOVITS
Journal Staff Writer

The stories were horrifying.

Thirty-four elderly residents, abandoned during Hurricane Katrina, drowned in a nursing home east of New Orleans.

Doctors and nurses in hospitals in New Orleans evacuated patients ahead of floodwaters to higher levels in their buildings, but ran out of supplies, food, water, and fuel for their generators.

"It strikes home the vulnerability we all have," said Peter T. Ginaitt, director of emergency preparedness at Rhode Island Hospital. "We've seen more hurricanes in the last three years. We have to be prepared for it, and not wait until it's nipping at us and there's water under the doors."

In Rhode Island, it wasn't a hurricane, but the Station nightclub fire that taught the state's hospitals a lesson about being prepared.

The fire sent scores of patients through their emergency room doors. While a report after the fire commended the work of hospital personnel, it pointed out that the hospitals had not been warned about the surge of incoming patients, that in-house emergency contacts were outdated, and that there was no statewide communications system.

Ginaitt, who worked as a Warwick rescue captain at the fire, said the report changed the way hospitals respond to all disasters.

They now run emergency drills twice a year and have plans that would enable them to handle 500 patients within the first hour of a disaster, he said.

The hospitals regularly test their in-house NEXTEL system and are connected through an interoperable radio system that allows them to communicate with other hospitals and emergency dispatchers. The system, part of a statewide network that could cost $60 million to $70 million, will link different agencies onto the same frequency and allow them to communicate with one another. The hospitals also have satellite phones.

All hospitals and nursing homes are required to have written evacuation plans. For some, it's easiest to evacuate "in place," moving patients, for example, to a higher floor to avoid floodwaters or into a separate building on the medical campus.

Rhode Island Hospital's safety is dependent on the Fox Point Hurricane Barrier, Ginaitt said. If it doesn't close properly, or if there's a greater storm surge than it can handle, he said, "we'd be in for a world of hurt."

The hospitals have agreements with one another to relocate patients and staff, said Marcia Trenn, risk manager at Our Lady of Fatima Hospital.

Our Lady of Fatima, based in North Providence, has contracts with ambulance and school bus services, plus the use of vans and a 21-passenger bus to move people, she said. It also has agreements with local nursing homes to take in residents, she said.

The operators of nonprofit and for-profit nursing homes met this fall with the state Emergency Management Agency to review their own evacuation plans.

Some plans were more detailed than others, said Robert J. Warren, executive director of the state EMA. One of the best, he said, was the plan prepared by Silver Creek Manor in Bristol, which could be surrounded by water during a hurricane.

Owner Gerald Romano said his staff can evacuate its 128 residents within 2 1/2 hours to the Rhode Island Veterans Home across town. And he knows, because they've done so three times before for past hurricane threats.

Before the hurricane season, the staff contacts its vendors and transportation companies to verify they'll be available to help. They check with families to ask whether they want to pick up their loved ones or have them evacuated to the Veterans Home, he said.

Staff at Silver Creek watch the weather and prepare to move well before the storm strikes. The staff has a checklist of supplies to bring with them to the Veterans Home, so they can continue functioning through the storm. They bring two to three weeks of supplies, including medications for 20 to 30 days, he said.

They didn't need Hurricane Katrina to remind them of the dangers, he said.

But, said Trenn, of Our Lady of Fatima, "Katrina reinforces that we all have that possibility at our back door at any time."